A JAPANESE WAR CRIME: HUMAN EXPERIMENTATION WITH POISON IN TAIPING, MALAYA DURING WORLD WAR II

Abstract

A human experimentation by the Japanese army with Ipoh poison was conducted on Mr. Chan Pak in Taiping jail, Perak, Malaya, as revealed by a war crime’s trial carried out by British forces in 1948. This study’s objective is to ascertain any violation of international law and human rights by the Japanese army through torture and poisoning of the said victim. This study is qualitative. A textual analysis has been utilized to illicit meaning from judgments of war crime trials and relevant international agreements on the conduct of war. A socio-legal approach is also applied as it is by nature multidisciplinary so as to combine history, security studies, and law. This study’s findings indicate a violation of Article 23 (a) of the 1899 and 1907 Hague Conventions on the laws and customs of war which forbid the use of poison despite Japan having signed and ratified these agreements. The prohibition of both poison and torture would have incriminated Japan because these have been accepted as customary international law. This study is significant as it highlights an obscure case of Japanese human experimentation with poison in Malaya.